


Swim in the Silver

by Minutia_R



Category: Chronicles of the Kencyrath - P. C. Hodgell
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Gen, Magical Education, Soulscape Shenanigans, The Fandom Is The Warning, Warning: Rawneth of Randir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-06 01:23:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11025642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minutia_R/pseuds/Minutia_R
Summary: Lady Rawneth wants to know what sort of granddaughter she has in Shade.





	Swim in the Silver

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sheliak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheliak/gifts).



> Thank you so much to opalmatrix for the beta!

“Milk-fed moron,” Shade hissed. The alliteration pleased her, and she went on: “Mooncalf. Misbegotten, motherless--” But that was as many m-insults as she could think of--at least ones that fit Lady Rawneth’s skinny, pale attendant.

White skin, white hair--no mystery where Lady Rawneth had gotten him. The Priests’ College, where unwanted Highborn Shanir were left to rot. Rumors of his unfortunate birth circulated freely through the children’s dormitories and training yard, but no clue as to _why_ she had chosen him. Up close, he seemed useless enough. He stood unblinking, his wide eyes staring somewhere to Shade's right, as if he didn’t hear her at all. It made her so mad she could have spit. She dredged up more venom instead. “Bloodless bastard. Idiot. Weakling.”

“Highborn,” Lady Rawneth put in silkily, coming up behind Shade without making a sound.

“Highborn,” Shade repeated with a mouth suddenly gone dry. She raised her hands in a formal salute, crossed at the wrists. Lady Rawneth gave her a heavy clout on the ear, and Shade moved with it, water-flowing, rocking forward on her toes but staying upright even as her head rang and she tasted blood.

“Better,” said Lady Rawneth. “Next time, keep your judgements to yourself. Our God chose the Arrin-Ken to judge, and your kind to serve. Bastard,” she added, snapping her fingers in the boy’s face. “Bastard!”

He flinched back, blinking, as if from a bright light. Pathetic, when Lady Rawneth hadn’t even touched him. “L-lady,” he stammered. “Do you--do you need me?”

“Never,” said Lady Rawneth. “But you can be useful to my granddaughter.”

“Oh.” The boy’s eyes darted around nervously before settling on Shade. They were wide, a washed-out color, somewhere between blue and gray. “What can--can I do for you, lady?”

Lady Rawneth laughed, a sound like chiming silver bells. The venom rose in Shade’s guts again. How blind was this idiot?

Shade swallowed it down, along with anything else she would have liked to add, and just said, “Not a lady, Highborn.”

“Do you need healing?” he asked hopefully.

“Hit him,” said Lady Rawneth.

Shade didn’t have to be told twice. Before Lady Rawneth had finished speaking, Shade was already moving, hips pivoting, fist swinging--she almost overbalanced on the follow-through because she’d been expecting some kind of resistance. Not _effective_ resistance, God knew, but surely even a half-wit could throw up his arms to protect his face? This boy just toppled like a poorly-balanced sack of grain.

She regained control of her momentum to follow him down, planting herself across his prone body. Red bloomed on his pale face where she’d hit him, and there was blood at the corner of his mouth. He whimpered softly, staring at nothing.

Shade sparred with Highborn boys during training. You had to treat them with deference outside the ring, but deference didn’t mean not beating them to a bloody pulp. Shade took satisfaction in every tooth knocked out of those thin, superior smiles, every handsome aquiline nose set askew. There was no satisfaction in this, though, even if it was what she’d been longing to do ever since she’d answered Lady Rawneth’s summons and found her pet mooncalf in the tower room as well.

Lady Rawneth hadn’t said stop. With all her frustrated rage, Shade drove her fist into the boy’s face again, and her world tilted sideways.

Water-flowing. It was Shade’s favored style, though of course you learned the kantirs for all the elements, and if you were too predictable in matches, it was you who ended up flat on your back getting beaten to a bloody pulp. Now Shade was surrounded by it, swift, cold, and merciless. _Go swim in the Silver_ \--an old training yard taunt. Everyone knew the river was not to be trifled with, though it flowed beneath them all their lives, but somehow it felt now like home to Shade, the way a kantir felt when you had gotten it right, more natural than moving through air. On the river bed beneath, scales gleamed dully, shifting in the rhythm of some vast, slow respiration.

 _Why?_ The cry echoed through the water, sliding over her skin. _Why, why, why?_

Stupid to question what couldn’t be helped. Stupid to whine instead of fight.

A body dragged itself out of the water and up the riverbank, pale and shivering, still bleeding feebly. The boy. Above the river stood Wilden in its carved-out valley, and he ran for it. He wouldn’t escape Shade that easily. She surged out of the river herself, only to find that she couldn’t walk. Well, then, she would crawl. She would slither, if she had to. Whipping back and forth across the ground, over stone flags, through corridors, keeping those white, bitable ankles in sight--

He turned a corner that Shade would have sworn wasn’t there. A flash of white, like a blow. The incongruous smell of flowers. Then Shade found herself in Lady Rawneth’s tower again, still crouched over the boy. His face was unmarked now. Lady Rawneth bent over them, took Shade’s chin in her fingers, tilted it back, raked her nails through Shade’s hair to get it out of her face.

The hair was white. Shade’s hair was black. But for a moment, it was white, although it slowly regained its original color even as Lady Rawneth examined it, and Shade’s bones felt like they were settling back into their own shape.

Their own? What had they been, then?

“Interesting,” said Lady Rawneth, turning Shade’s head first one way, then the other. Her voice was like the river. Cold. Deep. Unstoppable. “Never assume anyone is defenseless, girl.”

“Yes, lady,” said Shade. “Thank you for the lesson.”

“Up.” Lady Rawneth prodded at the boy’s fallen form with her foot, as if she disdained to touch him. “You too, bastard.”

Shade got to her feet, and the boy staggered upright gracelessly.

“Again,” said Lady Rawneth. “Hit him.”

This time Shade sketched him a salute before she began. This time she came in low and solid, earth-moving, with an elbow to the stomach. Once again, he fell, with nothing but a quiet sound of pain. If his defenses--whatever that strange vision had been--were brought up when she touched him skin-to-skin, then she didn’t have to. Like Lady Rawneth. But harder. She drew back her foot, kicked. It was like kicking a rag doll.

“He’s hiding,” said Lady Rawneth. “Make him come out.”

How had Lady Rawneth done it? “Bastard!” Shade called. There was no response. She bent over him, snapped her fingers in his face, but the wide eyes didn’t focus. She looked into them--

And for a moment it was as if she was looking out of them.

“Kindrie!” she said. He blinked, and she kicked him in the face. Blood flowed freely from his nose.

Where had she gotten that name?

“Interesting,” said Lady Rawneth again. She stood over Shade, touched her face so lightly, drew her fingers down to the pulse point on her neck. “Shall I make you a pair of my eyes, I wonder? Will you give me your soul if I ask it?”

“My lady,” said Shade, “it would be my honor.”

But the silent river current ran through her soul, and a great serpent lay in the depths of it, and a cry echoed through the water: _No, no, no!_

“Yes.” Lady Rawneth waved a dismissive hand. “But not today. Go back to your studies, girl.”

“My lady.” Shade saluted her and stepped around the body still lying on the floor, a puddle of blood drying by its head. She saluted that too. “Highborn.”

There was no answer, and nothing looked out of Kindrie’s eyes. Shade looked into them and thought, with no idea whether the thought would get through: _My name is Shade._

A name for a name. Randir paid their debts.


End file.
